Janice's Super Secret (and Admittedly Forbidden) Journal
by Macremae
Summary: The journal of Janice Palmer-Carlsberg and her thoughts on life, her town, and science.
1. June 20, 2013

June 20th, 2013  
>To the reader: hi! My name is Janice Palmer-Carlsberg, and I am writing this journal to not only chronicle my thoughts, but the strange (yet totally awesome) happenings of where I live: Night Vale. I got the idea from my Uncle Cecil's boyfriend, Carlos, who's a scientist studying all the "paranormal activity" in town. I guess it's kinda paranormal, but not in a bad way. We're just a special community! At least, that's what Uncle Cecil says on the radio.<br>They came over last night for dinner. My stepdad (who I just call Dad) decided that, since Uncle Carlos nearly died thanks to a small, yet oddly vicious tiny army living beneath lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, he should get to know him. Dad made lasagna and I helped! It was really good, probably because I swapped out the Parmesan container with the Alfredo when Dad wasn't looking. I don't get why he uses Parmesan, it not even that good. Anyway, Uncle Cecil and Uncle Carlos came for dinner at eight. My bedtime is 7:45, cause I'm ten (even though 7:45 is a completely unreasonable bedtime, as I have repeatedly told my parents!) so I got to stay up late!  
>For some reason Uncle Carlos was still wearing lab coat. I don't know why, maybe it's a scientist thing? Uncle Cecil was staring daggers at Dad for almost the entire dinner. I don't know the reason for that either. Maybe it's because of something I didn't see? Adults are weird.<p>

So Uncle Carlos was looking for a distraction from the silent war going on across the dinner table and asked me about school. I told him it was good, but kinda pointless seeing as I already knew pretty much everything I was being taught. The teachers have been talking about moving me up a grade, probably because I'm what Dad calls, " intellectually gifted". I think that just means I'm really smart. Anyway, I told him that and he said, "Oh". Then he didn't say anything for a couple of seconds. Then, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. It kinda came out of nowhere, but luckily, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I told him I want to be an inventor. I want to make cool stuff that helps people, like a device that can instantly peel any fruit! I'm pretty sure John Peters, you know, the farmer? would like that one. Then I showed Uncle Carlos the boosters I installed on my wheelchair to make it go faster, and so I wouldn't have to rely on people to push me around. He actually seemed pretty impressed! Then I told him about some of my other projects, and he told me about the tests he'd run on the fake bloodstones circulating around. It was awesome! I've told adults about my projects before, but that thought I was just "darling" and "cute" They never even took me seriously, but Uncle Carlos does! Maybe because he's a scientist. And guess what? he told me that I'm already an inventor, which is a kind of scientist, and invited me to his lab the next day! I was super excited.

After dinner finished and Dad did some of his impressions (which were terrible) I went to bed really excited about the next day.

I dropped by Uncle Carlos's lab around 11. He was mixing some stuff in a beaker, which looks a lot like the stuff that occasionally drips from Uncle Cecil's tentacles. The ones that come out when he's really mad. Uncle Carlos put some acid in the beaker, and there was a huge explosion! Luckily, he was wearing goggles and I was out of the way. I helped him in the lab for a couple of hours, and we figured out that Uncle Cecil's tentacles' secretion (that's what Uncle Carlos called them) turn lavender and corrosive when mixed with salt. It was really neat! Before I left, Uncle Carlos gave me this journal. He said that a scientist needs to write her discoveries down, and a young age was the best time for humans to develop habits.

So here I am! I plan to write down my findings as often as I can. Maybe I'll unknowingly collect clues to a big mystery and defeat the forces of evil, like in my favorite municipally approved book series: Bella Becker's Detective Diary! Or not. I dunno. I'm not really sure about a lot of things, like why all the interns at the radio station keep mysteriously disappearing or dying, or why socks get lost in the dryer. Maybe, one day, I'll find out. Until next time Journal!


	2. July 6, 2013

July 6th, 2013

Dear Diary,

Today began as one of those days when you really just wanna punch something. It started out simply enough: I get up, have breakfast, Dad goes off to work at his sports store and possibly gamble with his stupid friends, and the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Our Home (whose name from this point onward will be abbreviated as FOWWSLIOH so as to save my hands) leaves tomato paste in the upstairs bathtub to greet the day. It was a Saturday, so I had nothing to do. Luckily (or so I thought) I found some banana bread mix in the pantry, right next to the strange lamp that whistles and hops from 9 am to 1 pm every other Wednesday. We had some bananas left and a little bit of yeast so I set about making the bread. I had just taken it out of the oven when, out of nowhere, 17 sentient and walking bananas jumped out of the loaf!

They started running all over the house, spurting mashed up banana insides **everywhere**. I tested the bread with my Little Nuclear Physicists Chemistry Set, and it turns out the mix I had used had small traces of wheat. So now I was faced with several crazed bananas running all over my house and making a huge mess, and the fact that I had better cover this up fast, or else I would be quarantined. And so, my glorious Saturday was spent corralling all 47 bananas (yes, the little harlems **multiplied**), cleaning up the splattered banana paste all over the house, and disposing of the wheat-tainted banana bread in the proper ritualistic sacrifice. Luckily the amount of wheat was small enough that I wasn't attacked, but it still sucked.

A more pressing matter is what I found while digging through the attic after all the chaos was over: a box, heavily taped up and marked "Do Not Open". Naturally, I opened it. Inside was a laptop. And not just any laptop, but a Windows one, from the outside world! All computers here in Night Vale are made by Bloodstone Industries, and are **heavily **censored by the Sheriff's Secret Police, so to find one from outside of town is just fantastic! I booted it up and was shown a desktop similar to the Bloodstone In. ones, but different somehow. For one thing it didn't have the NVSSP logo plastered all over the screen, and there weren't any "hidden" cameras. There was iTunes, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and already loaded on it. I probably spent the rest of the day on that laptop, just checking out an uncensored web. **It. Is Amazing!** So much knowledge at one's fingertips… it's nut! But fantastic. I've learned more from one afternoon spent online then in all Kindergarten through 7th grade combined!

I have to keep this a secret though. If anyone found out about this laptop it could be confiscated, and I sent for re education. I've never gone before and I don't plan too, so I can't tell **anyone**, not even Dad. Especially not Dad, he'd just take it away to use for his Great Conspiracy Chart research, and I definitely **do not **want that. I'm gonna go get in a little more web time before Dad gets back from work. I've not only discovered tons of interesting information about science and history and all that stuff, but some very compelling TV shows as well. Apparently there are these things called "fandoms" which are big groups of people who like the same source of media. I think I'd like to join one of these "fandoms", just as an experiment. There's this show called Supernatural that looks kinda cool, and a lot of the stuff I see in Night Vale would blend right in! I wonder if I can use that to my advantage when writing "fan-fiction".


	3. July 11, 2013

July 11, 2013

Dear Diary,

Finding that laptop got me thinking. I mean, I do that a lot. Any living and sentient human being thinks. It's a part of life.

But anyway I was thinking about what I found while on that laptop. From what I can gather, Night Vale is pretty unique. Other towns don't have a Sheriff's Secret Police, or a FOWWSLIYH, or a five headed dragon (or any dragons for that matter). Their libraries also appear to be places of learning and calm, and _not_ horrible death traps from which no one returns. And the librarians are, apparently, pretty nice and helpful! All this stuff is commonplace everywhere. Well, everywhere but here. And now I wonder why. I mean, are we cursed? Is there some sort of weird paranormal energy that is constantly settled over town? I don't know, and while not knowing is okay sometimes, it's not okay now.

Over the past few days there have been a couple more deaths than usual, and I'm starting to wonder why Dad even lives here in the first place, or anyone for that matter! I love my town, don't get me wrong, it's just...I'm starting to wonder why everyone seems to take this stuff in stride. Shouldn't the almost monthly death of an intern at the radio station raise some kind of alarm? I know I'm not supposed to think like this (which is probably exactly why Dad does) but I don't understand.

I've found exactly one town other than here, Desert Bluffs, and Pine Cliff that seems to be out of the ordinary: this little place up in Oregon whose name I forget. I think it was called Depravity Smalls or something? It was from this blog post made by two kids detailing how to kill a manticore, and also high survival knitting for some reason. Either way, I'm gonna try and contact them using the laptop. Maybe they have some answers.

Speaking of Pine Cliff, my friend Claire, who lives there, sent me a letter today. I'm gonna paste it here:

Dear Janice,

Hi! How are things going in Night Vale? I got the lead in my community play. It's Romeo and Juliet, and guess who is Romeo? Matt Parson! I literally cannot believe my luck! He's soooo cute! And I get to kiss him! I'll bet you'd like him too. He has the cutest brown eyes and floppy blonde hair. I bet he's _such_ a good kisser. Oswin Peatlus is so jealous; she turned beet red when the cast list was posted. I wish you could come see it. The opening night is September 2nd.

I also got the new Destiny: the Dark Below. It's okay, the raid, strike missions are pretty fun, but the story missions are waaay too short. Maybe if you visit we can play multiplayer!

More weird stuff has happened too. Just two days ago a herd of giant snails came through! They stole six jugs of milk from the Publix, a box of nails from Hermy's Hardware, and a copy of Mario Kart Double Dash. Plus their leader was telepathic.

I'm really excited 'cause my family is gonna take a trip to New York City next week! We're gonna see a production of Roger and Hammerstein's Cinderella, a bunch of cool monuments, and even go up to the top of the Empire State Building! It's gonna be really great! Are you going on any vacations this summer? Write back soon!

XXX,

Claire

Okay, Claire is nice and whatnot, but there are a couple things that kinda irked me. Firstly, _no_, Claire I am not going on any vacations this summer. I have to stay here because leaving town on an "extravagant trip" apparently isn't in the budget! Gee I wonder why? Maybe it's because you make half of our money through stupid gambling Dad! If he sucked it up and just worked full time at the sports store that _he happens to own_ then maybe it would be in the budget! It's times like this that I hate child labor laws. Dad and I actually could do with the money I would get from working. And he's probably not gonna let me work until I'm 18! And don't even get me started on driving, even though I've already invented a custom Neuroband Driver so that I can. It's this headband that you wear and plug into the car through a USB cable, and it converts your brainwaves into directions to speed up, slow down, stop, etc. This way people who can't move their legs, like me, can still drive!

My big problem is that Dad sometimes acts like I can't do anything, but really the opposite is true! Heck, I bet I could make more money is one week than what he makes in a month!

The other thing that kinda ticks me off is the fact that Claire is "so sure" that I'll like this Matt guy! I mean, what if I don't? What he's not my type? Or what if I'm not even into boys? It's perfectly possible I could like girls. I don't exactly know, I haven't even hit puberty yet. I haven't felt any romantic attraction to anyone, but that's probably the puberty thing. I'm probably too young to be thinking about this, but the fact that Uncle Cecil and Uncle Carlos are now dating just got me thinking about it. I've been online some more, and it turns out people outside aren't nearly as accepting of homosexuals are we are in Night Vale. I guess with all the crazy and life-threatening stuff that goes on here most people don't find two people of the same gender being together that world shattering. And why would they honestly? It's two people, in love. They just happen to share the same chromosome. I honestly cannot fathom why this is such a big deal.

Well, that was heated. I've been feeling kinda cranky the past day or so. Maybe it's because of the Glow Cloud.


End file.
